L.A.'s First Rainy Day Causes 481 Accidents, At Least 5 Deaths, General Mayhem

Aside from a couple end-of-summer showers so far this year, yesterday was the first real rainy day of 2011.

And you know what a rainy day means in L.A.: People are going to freak the F out, creating a traffic tangle worse than the Internet trying to reconcile the Occupy protests with the death of 1-percenter Steve Jobs.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Francisco Villalobos tells us there were 481 collisions throughout L.A. County from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. yesterday, as opposed to...

... 138 during the same window last week. And those were just crashes that fell within CHP jurisdiction: "Any collisions on [L.A. city] surface streets we don't count," says Villalobos.

Though the vast majority of those were likely just cars slipping on mud puddles and hitting the vehicle in front of them/the center divide, at least four turned fatal.

If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.

Elsewhere in the county, Echo Park Lake undid millions in draining efforts by partially filling itself back up, San Pedro's pesky sinkhole problem inched nearer to catastrophe, Heal the Bay reminded L.A. that our trash/diseases are now all up in the ocean, and everyone remembered why they moved here instead of San Francisco/Seattle/New York. Because rain sucks. And we suck at dealing with it.